Our Filled Cup

DON’T FORGET to watch our first YouTube video at the end of this blog.

Good morning to our readers!

As we stated on our very first blog post, we wanted to reserve this space to document everything. We wanted to document our successes and our failures. Well, here we are, ready to share with you again. Today, we want to share our hope for this blog and our new YouTube channel.

Why are we blogging?

The road to success only seems dark if it’s clouded by your fears.

We want to document our journey on this blog because we feel very fortunate to have been able to take the steps we did towards our dream and we wish to share and inspire others to do the same. Just eight months ago, California was our home. Our hopes and dreams for our future were uncertain. We never thought we’d be where we are today. Surely, you have heard of the term wage slave before. As blessed as we were to have a promising career that could lead our family to a fairly stable future, it didn’t feel right. The hours and energy spent on the clock weren’t fulfilling. We had a desire for more (or some would say, less). We wanted a fulfilling life of growing our own food and living closer to God’s beautiful world.

Cocoa bird

Have you ever studied the behavior of chickens? When a momma hen goes broody, (broody is a term used to describe a hen that wants to incubate her eggs) she spends the majority of her days meticulously rearranging her nest and rotating her eggs to ensure that each egg is equally warmed on all sides. She may even pluck feathers off of her body so she can use her warm skin to warm the eggs. Aside from leaving the nest for a little sustenance a few times a day, she will sit on her eggs all day and all night. After they’ve hatched, she will raise and teach them the ways of the chicken and protect them.

Broody momma hen warming her three chicks (Yes, there are three hiding in her feathers!)

Often, you’ll notice a discoloring in her comb and waddle due to her lack of nutrients. During feeding time, she will use her beak to sweep away food from a feeder so her chicks can have them. She’ll even pick up a treat that she loves, only to drop it for her babies to eat. She will also protect these chicks from the rest of the flock’s pecking order. This momma hen will continue her motherly ways until she is not needed anymore. Soon, the chicks will hit what we call their “teenage” weeks and pull away from momma hen, which in turn lets momma hen know that her time with them has come. How beautiful is that?

Now, imagine a little chick that’s been hatched in a mechanical incubator and raised without a mother. One day, when she goes broody, chicks are carefully slipped under her to trick her into taking them in as her own. Will she then know how to teach her babies how to eat, drink, and stay safe? If she had no experience being raised by her momma, will she be able to successfully raise these chicks on her own? The answer? Yes, it happens all the time! We witnessed just that after we slipped three chicks under our broody hen. Watching our broody momma love and nurture the babies was truly magical.

We are where we are today because we witnessed something so beautiful in our chickens that left us in awe. We wanted more. We wanted to be able to raise our daughter around more nature and go forward to the days of farming. A self-sustaining life was our ideal.

So many people ask us, “Why Minnesota?” To tell you the truth, we prayed and God led. There is no better way to answer that question than that. Specifically, we prayed for God to place us where we could bless others; a place where we could serve. God was faithful.

To sum it up, we gave up our comfortable life in California to take a leap of faith. Fear of the unknown and worry about the lack of financial security kept us caged, but we chose to fight it because we knew that our cup could be filled. And so, that is why we decided to call this blog “Filled Cup”. A filled cup is not a goal to us, but a mindset. Though we may not always feel like our cup is filled, we always remember that ultimately, our cup has already been filled and will stay full as long as we have a heart of contentment. By staying humble and grateful for the little things, we won’t have a need for more.

Are you feeling pulled to do something more with your life? Do you desire more? Ask yourself, what is stopping you? Now, it may not be a move to another state or a move altogether. Maybe you’ve been putting off going back to school, applying for that new job, quitting your job to stay home with the kids, starting that small business, ending that toxic relationship, courting that cute girl, starting a garden, putting the house on the market, or starting a blog. Whatever it may be, we hope you don’t let fear stop you from taking steps forward and that you fill your cup.

Thank you for stopping by!

Tomorrow, we will begin we will begin part one of our homestead/market gardening series. Then, stay tuned for some homeschool freebies and a post from “Anxious Anna”. You also don’t want to miss a little entertaining video from our littlest contributor (our 6-year-old) coming soon.

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May your day be filled with things that nurture your soul and fill your cup.

We grew up in the city, and never realized how detached from the earth our minds were. It is a blessing to be able to give our daughter a life where she can see and understand the miracle that is life.